My guess is a combination of genetics, poor upbringing, and negligent schooling.

One fallacy I see a lot of that makes me shake my head is the notion that all children can be geniuses, or at least average, if only proper education techniques are applied. Nope. Some people out there are just. plain. stupid. I’m not including folks with Downs Syndrom in that catagory - there are just people who genuinely lack a certain amount of brainpower.

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1: Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. If it does what it says, you should have no problem with this.
2: What proof will you accept that you are wrong? You ask us to change our mind, but we cannot change yours?
3: It is not our responsability to disprove your claims, but rather your responsability to prove them.
4. Personal testamonials are not proof.

That would be charming if it came out the mouth of a little kid, and everyone would have a good laugh about it. As it is it’s incredible. I often think that, in addition to some of the factors Robin brings up, (like rotten schools and socialisation, and the fact that the information just doesn’t seem to go into some people, not always uniformly, some people struggle with, say, one skill or discipline but do well in another) a wilful desire not to learn new information has a part to play. I’ve sometimes met people who seem to delight in not knowing certain things, will oppose any attempt to inform them about some issue or matter, and seem to take pride and see virtue in their being ignorant. Admittedly that might be a socialisation thing, possibly something to do with school systems where it’s seen as normal and admirable to look down on seemingly intelligent people as ‘nerds’ etc.

I suppose my point is that I think as well as people not always getting the chance to learn for whatever reason (and studies on neglected children, and the experience of anyone who’s ever tried to learn a foreign language in adulthood seem to indicate a lot of learning is better started in childhood.), and genetic factors, some people don’t learn because they just don’t want to.

Not sure how any of that fits into the phone caller’s situation, mind you. I think she does seem to have a tendency I’ve spotted amongst conspiracy theorists though, that belief that all our problems could be easily fixed, but ‘they’, (often the government as here, but I like when it’s some secret Grand Conspiracy) don’t want to, because they enjoy letting us suffer the problem, and ignore all our pleas for help. I suppose these things could start with a grain of justifiability (i.e. it’s justified to be miffed if you’re constantly getting into accidents with deer during your daily drive and you don’t see a way you can avoid it, just as it’s justified to not like dealing with some innefectual, inefficient beauracracy, or whatever.), the issue is when you start seeing a deliberate grand plan, where ‘they’ are aware of the problem, deliberately placed the obstacle in your way (like deliberately poorly-sighted crossings, which could be placed anywhere and the deer, who are either literate in human languages or can understand abstract human signage that looks a bit like a deer silhouette on a background, and are oddly compliant, (maybe they’re in on the conspiracy?) would obey, but are there so that the deer cross exactly where they’ll be a problem), and won’t hear your pleas for help.